By Kang Seung-woo
Staff reporter
Cho Su-jin, a worker in the financial industry, usually leaves work at 5 p.m. and heads to a swimming pool.
Thanks to newly-introduced flexible working schedules, her daily life has improved greatly.
"As a woman, it is tough to work in this area for a long time," said the early 30-something Cho, who starts work at 7 a.m.
"After calling it a day earlier, I spend most of my time on self improvement. I go to the pool, take computer programming classes and study to get more certificates.
"I felt some eyebrows were raised over my behavior at first, but now I am used to it," she said.
Overall throughout Korea Inc., employees like Cho are rare, as they are not used to this concept and they fear that they will stand out among the crowds by taking advantage of it.
The discretionary flexible work schedule, in contrast to traditional work arrangements, gives employees a choice over the actual times they work their contracted hours, meaning they can select the beginning of business (BOB) and close of business (COB) in accordance with their circumstances and optimize their off-duty time.
"The system made its debut with much fanfare a month ago, but I think it is in not popular now," said a sales manager of a local financial group on condition of anonymity.
"If someone wants to come in earlier, work eight hours and leave earlier, he needs to be more competent than anyone else. Otherwise, he will definitely be in the hot seat and hear others complain behind his back."
He said that just one out of seven members in his division is currently capitalizing on the system and thanks to his well-earned reputation at work, he has no problem doing so.
In addition, he said that within Korea's corporate culture, the flexible work scheme cannot come to fruition.
"People still take it for granted that employees can't leave the office until after their seniors," he added.
"Therefore, employees seen coming early is a disadvantage because they will have to keep their butts in the seats anyhow."
An employee at a leading major electronics company, also says that hierarchical companies are not the right place to introduce the adjustable working-hour system.
"The top line of the company orders each division to implement the system, but due to the heads of the departments, we cannot willingly take advantage of it," said the salaried worker, who declined to be named.
The public sector appears to be making a more concerted approach toward the implementation of flextime.
The Ministry of Public Administration and Security proposed the plan in May and it will have operated the system on a trial basis until the end of this month before coming up with a finalized one.
Currently, approximate 1,000 public servants from 17 agencies are under this pilot program.
Some say that, if flextime proves to be more productive, more corporations will introduce it. Currently, Korean workers log long hours but compare poorly with workers from other advanced countries in terms of productivity.
According to the OECD, Koreans worked 2,316 hours a year on average in 2007, the longest among OECD member countries. They worked around 1,000 hours more than workers in the Netherlands, and around 500 hours more than the OECD average.
But the nation's productivity is much lower than that of its counterparts, ranking 22nd.
"Korean businesses are still caught in the mentality of the industrialization period. They are working with their bodies not with their brains," said Ahn Byung-wook, a researcher at Samsung Economic Research Institute.